The Snipes. 471 



by one gun, some few miles north of 

 Rangoon. In the Shan States, seventy 

 one couples have been obtained by one gun 

 near Fort Stedman, and very large bags 

 are sometimes made in the Kyoukse 

 District in Upper Burma, where the rice- 

 fields are under constant irrigation during 

 the dry weather. 



The late Mr. H. Seebohm observed this 

 Snipe in summer, and writing in the Ihis^ 

 said : — " The first Wader which arrived at 

 our winter quarters on the Arctic Circle 

 was the Pin-tailed Snipe. We shot a 

 couple on the 5th of June, three days after 

 the ice began to break up on the great 

 river. Three days later they were exceed- 

 ingly common on the oases of bare grass 

 which the sun had been able to make in a 

 few favourable situations in the midst of the 

 otherwise universal desert of melting snow. 

 I could easily have shot a score a day if 

 I had had cartridges to spare. They used 

 to come wheeling round, uttering a loud 

 and rather shrill cry (some idea of which 

 may be gathered by the sound of the word 

 peezh^ long drawn out) ; then they used 

 to drop down with a great whirr of wings, 

 and with tail outspread — an operation 

 which seemed so engrossing that they 

 appeared seldom to discover, until they 



